300: Rise of an Empire (2014)

by Roger Edwards

300: Rise of an Empire is a curious beast, being neither a sequel or a prequel, but rather a tale of  events that took place simultaneously to the original movie. While Gerard Butler is busy making a last stand at the Battle of Thermopylae, warrior and politician Themistokles, played by that household name Sullivan Stapleton, leads a similar army of buffed  Greeks against the Persian fleet. Once again we have a movie that is the epitome of style over substance, complete with a sound design that challenges what can physically be endured by human hearing. They say the first casualty of war is innocence but in movies it’s closely followed by historical accuracy along with authentic ethnicity.
Since the release of the original 300 back in 2007, the visual aesthetic used by Zack Snyder has been heavily replicated elsewhere. Although it was quite innovative at the time, reflecting the original style of Frank Miller’s graphic novel, it is now a somewhat tired visual effect. The market is somewhat saturated by big budget spectacles these days and Hollywood’s overall aesthetic style is becoming increasingly homogeneous and self plagiarising. The only major difference this time round is that director by Noam Murro has added 3D to the mix. The stylised violence is still a major element of the proceedings and still happily ignores the realities of basic human anatomy.

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